


Salt.

by rocknrollalien



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, josephine is useless and very attracted to isabela, like have you seen isabela? can you blame her?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 18:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14290695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocknrollalien/pseuds/rocknrollalien
Summary: Leliana wants to get Josephine out of Skyhold to see the ocean, and takes the opportunity to introduce her to a famously beautiful pirate admiral.





	Salt.

**Author's Note:**

> So! As a warning! This is my first time writing something as explicitly shippy as this? Usually I do established relationships or really long slowbuilds from friendship into romance, but this is plunging right in, so I'm nervous! Almost as nervous as Josephine *ba dum tss*

“Josephine,” Leliana said, not looking up from the reports in her hands. She had this uncanny ability to speak and listen while reading, but had never mastered writing while holding a conversation. It was one of the ways the two women balanced each other out. “You’re really going to want to come along this time.”

Josephine snorted, and was glad to have the social freedom to do so. If anyone else had suggested such a silly enterprise, she’d have had to politely sigh and decline. With Leliana, she could be as ridiculous as she wanted. True, she might get teased, but what else are sisters for?

“Ah yes, your ongoing quest to have me accompany you on one of your little expeditions to the coast. What is it this time? A diplomat I need to speak with personally, as soon as he leaves his ship?” Josephine said amusedly.

She glanced up from the letter she was writing--a request to an Arlessa in Ferelden involving the support of refugees from the since resolved Mage-Templar conflict--to see Leliana’s sliver of a smile. Leliana glanced up at the same time to quirk an eyebrow at her dear friend, and Josephine hid her grin under a hand.

It was rare that the two found time to spend together, so even this--simultaneously working on different projects for the Inquisition--felt like leisure. Josephine wished that Leliana would come down from her raven-filled tower and sit in one of the plush chairs in Josephine’s office more frequently. As it was, Leliana still preferred to pace near the fireplace rather than take a comfortable seat.

“No diplomat, I’m afraid,” Leliana said. There was a quality to her voice that reminded Josephine of a cat playing with its dinner, or of a patron toying with her bard. It was enough to pause Josephine’s writing so she could watch Leliana more carefully.

Josephine was no stranger to Leliana’s games, however. She knew it was more fun to play along than to expect a straight answer.

“Ah, so you’ve no need of me after all,” she said, resting her pen in its inkwell and crossing her hands delicately in her lap. “You know how busy I am, so surely you wouldn’t be sending me on a fool’s errand for your own entertainment.”

Leliana turned back to her reports, but she bit her lip to keep in a laugh. Josephine tried not to smirk at the miniature victory in her ongoing battle to get Leliana to get back to her old self, and failed. Josephine had decided that getting Leliana to smile, to laugh, was the best thing for her. Whatever Leliana had been through during the Blight, during the subsequent years, was perhaps none of Josephine’s business. But seeing her friend be happy certainly was.

“You are absolutely right, Josie,” Leliana said slowly. There was a quirk to her mouth that Josephine recognized as her loss in whatever small game they were playing. “I wouldn’t want to distract you unless it was something you would very much enjoy, no? Perhaps you should come along and see.”

Josephine was determined to stand firm. “Like the last time you wanted me to come along, simply because you thought I’d enjoy the ocean air?”

Leliana struggled to keep in a laugh. “Your aides seemed to enjoy it enough in your stead, don’t you think?”

“I believe they were traumatized by the storm,” Josephine quipped, raising an eyebrow and concealing a smile.

“You’d think they’d expect a place called the Storm Coast to have some bad weather,” Leliana replied. Her mask of severity was cracking as she recalled the venture. “It’s not my fault they didn’t know to pack oilskins.”

Josephine giggled in delight at the mental image of her poor, rain soaked messengers shivering in their nicest clothing. Perhaps it was cruel to joke about such things, but it was as amusing an image as seeing a cat recovering from being dunked in a bath.

“Are you sure you really don’t just want me to see the ocean again?” Josephine asked, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. “You know we have shipments to and from Val Royeaux all the time, we could tag along with any one of those and see the Waking Sea.”

Leliana grinned, her eyes bright and mischievous. For a moment, she was 20 years old again in Josephine’s eyes, ready to sing well enough to seduce the information out of the most tight-lipped dowager.

“I have someone I want you to meet,” she said. Accompanied by that smile, the laughter in her voice was enough to get Josephine to relent.

“Fine, I will come along. You must allow me time to delegate some tasks beforehand, of course,” Josephine sighed, smiling all the same.

“Of course.”

* * *

 

The woman on the ship was incredible. Even from the beach, Josephine could hear her shout and command and simply own the space she was in. She heard the woman’s bark of laughter as she rose out of the rowboat to step onto the sand.

The captain of the Siren’s Call II wasn’t tall, like Josephine had imagined. She was short and plump with round hips and strong shoulders. She wore a large hat, as if that made up for the apparent lack of trousers in her ensemble. She looked Rivaini, perhaps, or Antivan, but she smirked and carried on like a woman who knew no nation. She was obviously not a sailor, or a reputable business woman.

She was a pirate.

It took all of Josephine’s willpower not to spiral into some fairy tale fantasy. She’d read stories about noble pirates and beautiful girls whisked away into the sea. Most of them were cautionary tales, warning against marrying outside of one’s station or eloping. To Josephine, they’d always had a mysterious air of romance she couldn’t put a finger on.

Until now.

Looking at the pirate, the romantic nature of the cheap novels was as tangible as the salt on her lips.

She just hoped she wasn’t blushing.

“Leliana!” the pirate called, practically singing out the name as she approached.

She extended her arms as though waiting for a hug which Leliana obviously did not reciprocate. Far from being offended, however, the woman simply swung her arms and landed with her hands on her hips as if that had been her intention all along. For all Josephine knew, it had been. She was confident in every motion she made, from her smile to the sway of her hips.

“Isabela, it is good to see you again,” Leliana said. She sounded reserved to someone who didn’t know her, but she couldn’t hide the affection in her voice from Josephine. “I had a feeling you’d show up soon.”

Isabela, apparently, laughed. She laughed the way Josephine often wished she could laugh; head back, chest heaving, with absolutely no shame or worry about what people thought. It was how men laughed when they wanted to show dominance. Isabela grinned cheekily once she was done with her display of-- what was it? Not dominance, Josephine thought, but something else.

“Well, Hawke was supposed to get a lift to Skyhold somehow,” Isabela said. “It was all very hush-hush, you know. Not even _you_ heard about it, Sister Spy-Pants.”

Josephine was taken aback by how casually the woman was approaching all of this. Isabela knew who Leliana was, seemed to have met her before, and was remarkably unafraid. Most of the people who’d known Leliana from any time after the Blight came away from the encounter with fear in their hearts. Was Isabela just fearless? Or did the two go further back than she’d imagined?

“You’re absolutely correct. All of my reports of the Raiders have been completely unrelated to you or the Champion of Kirkwall. How was Seheron, by the way?” Leliana asked, a smirk creeping onto her face.

Isabela took a step back and opened her mouth, startled, but the look of shock gave way to an impressed grin in no time at all. She crossed her arms and lifted an eyebrow, sizing Leliana up with the new knowledge of her information-tracking prowess.

“It’s lovely this time of year,” Isabela replied glibly. “Now, down to business; who is that beautiful creature next to you?”

Josephine had assumed she was being ignored, but when Isabela’s golden eyes met hers, she felt a shiver crawl up her spine. She was being assessed. By a pirate. She was probably a pocket to be picked in Isabela’s eyes, a map to a treasure to be plundered. Josephine watched Isabela notice the jewels on her dress, the golden sheen of her sleeves, and straightened her back. Some part of her, the part of her that wanted to laugh loud and be crass, delighted under the pirate’s lascivious gaze.

“This is Josephine Montilyet,” Leliana said, thankfully before Josephine could embarrass herself. “She’s the diplomat for the Inquisition. She’s very skilled.”

“I’ll bet,” Isabela said, her voice low and rife with implications.

Josephine felt her mouth go dry.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said, carefully returning to her classic script for meeting notable people. If she thought too hard about Isabela’s eyes combing over her body, she’d be rendered speechless, which would make her merit as a diplomat somewhat diminished. “I have put some thought into crafting an alliance with the Raiders of the Waking Sea, but you understand how the public might react to that sort of arrangement.”

It was a formal, carefully crafted response. Josephine tacked on a smile, hoping it wasn’t as wobbly as she felt.

Isabela raised an eyebrow speculatively. She glanced at Leliana, who nodded, and back at Josephine. Josephine looked over the pirate’s shoulder and saw Leliana’s smirk as plain as day. Oh, Leliana would pay for this.

“I brought you Hawke, didn’t I? What else could I graciously provide?” Isabela asked, putting a hand on her hip.

The motion brought attention to her hips again, and Josephine wondered when she’d suddenly become so shallow. She was practically objectifying this woman she hardly knew. Ridiculous. Was she a schoolgirl with her first crush? Josephine vowed to do better. She would no longer be a mute in the face of a beautiful woman. She was a diplomat!

“Trade,” Josephine said. “Corypheus may be a darkspawn Magister from pre-history, but that is something I do not plan on personally grappling with. He has people, normal people, working for him. Many come from Tevinter, many will come over ships.”

Isabela’s face lit up as she understood the proposition--though it surely wasn’t the type of proposition she was used to. “You want me to play privateer for your little empire, is that it?”

Josephine smiled a true smile this time, not a mask for her nervousness. She was sharp and beautiful. She was starting to see why Leliana thought she’d be interested.

“I can make arrangements with interested governments, at least locally, to ensure you won’t be tried for piracy in certain territories,” Josephine said, beckoning to one of her attendants who was standing some distance away.

A young elven woman dressed in the Inquisition’s best uniform approached, drenched down to her skin. Isabela, Leliana, and Josephine shared a moment of suppressing laughter as they looked at the miserable young woman while Josephine retrieved her clipboard and candle. The same attendant offered up an umbrella, at which Josephine nodded in thanks.

As she began writing out some of her ideas of who to contact--Celene was too busy with her foolish Civil War to listen to such requests, which meant going around her...perhaps some people in Jader could provide some assurances--Isabela came up next to her to peek over her shoulder. There was a shiver of anticipation as Isabela put a hand on her shoulder, their cheeks almost close enough to touch.

“Don’t stop writing on my behalf,” Isabela said in a whisper. Josephine could feel the breath on her face. “I’m intrigued in more ways than one.”

Despite Josephine’s previous resolve, she felt goosebumps rising on her arms at the proximity to Isabela. She smelled like sweat and tar, like a ship and the sea. There was no perfume, no frippery involved. She was genuine down to her very scent. She was, by all accounts, fascinating.

Josephine cleared her throat. “The way I see it, it would be mutually beneficial for you and your fleet to have limited free reign throughout the Waking Sea. I cannot guarantee anything on the Amaranthine Ocean, and I will be calling in considerable favors with the nobility, but you would get to help save the world.”

“Ah, heroism. What every pirate wants,” Leliana commented sarcastically, reminding Josephine and the pirate that she was here.

Josephine was sure she blushed that time, but hid it with an offended bristle.

“Is it not? To sail the seas in search of adventure and freedom means freedom from law, yes, but also freedom from oppressive would-be gods who wish to bring Tevinter back to the good old days of Imperial world domination,” she snapped.

Isabela laughed with that same raucous laughter that had taken Josephine’s attention before. She removed herself from Josephine’s shoulder to give her some space, standing with arms akimbo. “Give me some credit, Sister,” she said playfully. “I did save Kirkwall a few times, didn’t I?”

Leliana shrugged. “Do you mean the time you saved it from the Qunari invasion you caused, or the time you had a hand in nearly destroying the city?”

Isabela snorted. “Obviously I mean both of those times.”

Josephine laughed, which surprised both herself and Leliana. She covered her face politely as she laughed, a completely different style of laugh than Isabela’s roar, but the snorts and snickers were there nonetheless.

“My apologies, I do not to seem rude,” she said between giggles.

“None necessary,” Isabela said, her eyes fixed on Josephine as she bit her lip thoughtfully. “You’re adorable.”

Josephine stopped in her tracks, mid-laugh, to simply stare in response. She was really not proving herself as eloquent as she usually liked, but such barefaced compliments were not the type of thing she was used to. Compliments in the Orlesian style were about your clothing, about your company, about your manner of speech. Not like this at all.

She descended into laughter again anyway, reaching out with her free hand to touch Isabela’s arm. An invitation? Perhaps. She wasn’t yet sure. She was, in any event, excited to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> I have the potential for another chapter in this, potentially with smut? But since I'm new to this, I think I'd like feedback before I continue onward, especially as I believe this works as it's own thing. If you like it, and would like to see more, please let me know with comments or kudos! Tell me what you think!


End file.
